Greetings LCCEF Members,
LCCEF’s latest bargaining with the administration resulted in some good financial gains for all our members. All classified staff will receive a one-step increase, even those who are currently at the top step of their pay range. At the same time, the bottom step of each pay range will be removed. These changes at the bottom and top of the range will result in the entire pay range being shifted a step higher.
There will also be a cost of living adjustment (COLA) of 2.25% added to each step. Both the step increase and the COLA are retroactive back to July 1 of this year, though the pay increases for each will show up in your paychecks at different times, due to the complexities of the payroll process.
The shifting of the pay ranges may cause some confusion if you are at the bottom or top step. The following examples demonstrate how the changes will be implemented.
Example 1: An employee at the top step of the range receiving a step increase:
An employee is currently at Level 7/Payroll Step 19, after the salary schedule is loaded into banner and jobs are rolled to the new schedule, this employee will still be at payroll step 19. They will have received a pay increase of a full step, but their step number will remain the same because they are now at the new highest step.
Example 2: Employee NOT eligible for step increase (has not passed trial service as of July 1st, 2021):
An employee hired on September 1st, 2021 was placed on Level 7/Payroll Step 1. They are NOT eligible for a step increase. However, they will receive the equivalent of a full step increase, since the current step 1 will be dropped from the schedule and they will be moved to the current step 3, new step 1.
There is only one person that this will impact.
Example 3: Employee NOT eligible for step increase (has not passed trial service as of July 1st, 2021):
An employee hired on September 1st, 2021 was placed on Level 7/Payroll Step 5. They are NOT eligible for a step increase, therefore they will stay on the current payroll step 5 which will become the new step 3.
For employees in this category it will appear that they are being moved back a full step even though they will still receive the 2.25% salary schedule adjustment. There are 23 employees that this will impact.
Part-time classified employees (C3). Even though C3 employees are not eligible to receive a step increase, any C3 employee currently on step 1 of the schedule will need to be moved to the current step 3/new step 1 (see Example 2). All other C3 employees will be impacted similar to the employees in Example 3.